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Hello again, I will try to describe my three days with tecfidera. I read on this site the ways to avoid the side effects and I can say help me a lot. A very good breakfast around 9 am , eggs, bacon and 2 slices of bread with peanut butter, my nurse said the oily peanut helps a lot to protect the stomach from the side effect of tecfidera. Anyway till now I follow this kind of heavy and full of proteins breakfast and the only side effects i have is the flushing feeling about one our after i take my medicine and I feel itching on my arms and upper body. This keep for half hour and then gone, is a bit annoyed ok but not a big deal. I can say after the 2 years on rebif and the thousand of pain killers every 2 days, the bad mood, the red marks all over my body, tecfidera is more gentle with me . We will see after one month the blood exams and the MRI after 6 months, how this medicine works for me.
Maybe the protocol we use here in Netherlands is different, so helps to be more easy to start the medicine. So here we start like this:
First week every day 1 of 120 mgr, morning
Second week every day 1 of 120 mgr morning and 1 of 120 mgr evening
Third week 1 of 120 mgr morning and 1 of 240 mgr evening
Fourth week 1 of 240 mgr morning and 1 of 240 mgr evening
Hope the best to all

Last year, I was diagnosed with MS by accident. I had an MRI for carpal tunnel, and they found brain, spine, and thoracic lesions, and thyroid cancer. Had thyroid and surrounding lymph nodes removed.
1 year later, I just had second MRI, no progression. No symptoms. But Dr. wants me on MS medicine. I do not like needles, so I start Tecfedera next week. I am so scared. Am I doing the right thing? Should I go on copaxone? Please please advise! I am 55 years old.

mendelssohn wrote:Last year, I was diagnosed with MS by accident. I had an MRI for carpal tunnel, and they found brain, spine, and thoracic lesions, and thyroid cancer. Had thyroid and surrounding lymph nodes removed.
1 year later, I just had second MRI, no progression. No symptoms. But Dr. wants me on MS medicine. I do not like needles, so I start Tecfedera next week. I am so scared. Am I doing the right thing? Should I go on copaxone? Please please advise! I am 55 years old.

Welcome to ThisIsMS Mendelssohn. You may wish to read through the prescribing information which can be found via the link in the sticky post at the top of the forum. If you decide to go on Tecfidera, then you should be tested for your JC virus status as Tecfidera is known to increase the risk for a condition called PML which can be more disabling than MS. It also states that your white blood cell count should be periodically monitored.

Regarding Copaxone, many people do OK on that, but it's been shown to have little effect on long-term disability progression (say over 10-15 years or so). In addition, I recently learned that Copaxone can cause breakdown of tooth enamel in some people. http://www.thisisms.com/forum/copaxone- ... 28017.html

I don't know if there's enough known about Tecfidera to compare it to the other MS meds as it's still fairly new. Though you can read through other people's posts about it and ways to minimize the side effects.

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